Football: A History of Semantic and Cultural Borrowing [1]

Transcription

The International Journal of the History of Sport
Vol. 26, No. 15, December 2009, 2219–2235
Football: A History of Semantic and
Cultural Borrowing [1]
Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 18:32 9 January 2010
Mélanie Bernard-Béziade and Michaël Attali
Sport is a practice, yet it is also a language conveying the representations of those who
structure it and those who employ it. The contribution of numerous English lexical units
to the lexicon of other languages in touch with United Kingdom participates in the
diffusion of sport and its level of penetration in geographical spaces. France does not
escape this phenomenon and its language borrows from its Anglo-Saxon neighbour.
Anglicisms have been described in opprobrious terms for a long time by critics who
consider them the sign of France’s dependence on the British Empire. Through the
analysis of five types of anglicisms (intact, truncated, gallicized, signified and signifier
anglicism) and about 60 lexical units, we will identify the privileged forms of borrowings,
their origins and the meaning to be attributed to them and thus show the role of sport in
general and football in particular in linguistic and cultural diffusion.
Une histoire d’emprunt culturel et sémantique : le football
Si le sport est pratique, il est aussi langage véhiculant les représentations de ceux qui le
structurent et de ceux qui l’emploient. L’apport de nombreux termes anglais dans le
lexique des autres langues en contact avec l’Angleterre participe ainsi de la diffusion du
sport et de son niveau de pénétration dans les espaces géographiques. La France n’y
échappe pas et sa langue emprunte à sa voisine anglo-saxonne. Les ‘‘anglicismes’’, dont
l’expression apparaı̂t en 1687, ont depuis longtemps stigmatisé les critiques en
considérant qu’ils seraient le signe d’une dépendance de la France à l’empire
britannique. A travers l’analyse de cinq types d’anglicismes (anglicisme intact, anglicisme
tronqué, anglicisme francisé, anglicisme de signifiant, anglicisme de signifié) et d’une
soixantaine de lexies, nous préciserons les formes d’emprunt privilégiées, leurs origines et
le sens à leur attribuer permettant de situer la place du sport en général et du football en
particulier dans la diffusion linguistique et culturelle.
Mélanie Bernard-Béziade, Doctor In Linguistics, 48 rue Voltaire, 33400 TALENCE, France;
Michaël Attali, Maı̂tre de conférences – Université de Grenoble 1, Laboratoire SENS, 1741 rue de la
Piscine, 38400 St Martin d’Hères, France. Correspondence to: [email protected]
ISSN 0952-3367 (print)/ISSN 1743-9035 (online) ! 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09523360903367677
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M. Bernard-Béziade and M. Attali
Historia de un caso de apropiación semántica y cultural: el fútbol
El deporte es una práctica, pero también es lenguaje que expresa las representaciones
de los que lo estructuran y los que lo utilizan. La contribución de numerosas
unidades léxicas del inglés al léxico de otros idiomas en contacto con Gran Bretaña
ha contribuido a la difusión del deporte y a su nivel de penetración en los diversos
espacios geográficos. Francia no es ajena a este fenómeno y su idioma ha tomado
préstamos de su vecino anglosajón. Durante mucho tiempo los anglicismos han sido
descritos en términos infamantes por parte de una crı́tica que los considera signos de
la dependencia francesa respecto del Imperio Británico. Mediante el análisis de cinco
tipos de anglicismos (intacto, truncado, galicizado, anglicismo significante y
significado) y de unas sesenta unidades léxicas, identificaremos los tipos privilegiados
de préstamos, sus orı́genes y el significado que se les debe atribuir, poniendo ası́ de
relieve el papel del deporte en general y del fútbol en particular en la difusión
cultural y lingüı́stica.
Eine Geschichte des kulturellen und semantischen Anleihens: Fußball
Sport ist ein praktisches Handlungsfeld, zugleich ist es auch die Sprache, die die
Ausführungen derer übermittelt, die ihn strukturieren und ausüben. Der Beitrag
zahlreicher englischer lexikalischer Einheiten in die Lexika anderer Sprachen, die mit
Großbritannien in Kontakt stehen, trägt zur Ausbreitung des Sports und dem Ausmaß
seiner Durchdringung in geographischen Räumen bei. Auch Frankreich entkommt
diesem Phänomen nicht und seine Sprache leiht bei seinem angelsächsischen Nachbarn
an. Anglizismen sind von Kritikern mit schmähenden Worten bezeichnet worden, die
diese als Zeichen für die Abhängigkeit Frankreichs vom britischen Empire ansehen.
Durch die Analyse fünf verschiedener Typen von Anglizismen (intakt, verkürzt,
(gallicised), gekennzeichnete und kennzeichnende Anglizismen) und etwa 60 lexikalischer Einheiten werden die bevorzugten Formen der Anleihen, deren Ursprünge und
Bedeutungen, die ihnen zugeschrieben werden, identifiziert, um somit die Rolle des
Sports im Allgemeinen und des Fußballs im Speziellen in linguistischer und kultureller
Ausbreitung darzustellen.
A History of Semantic and Cultural Borrowing
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Like any social activity, sport is based on sociocultural exchange, which results in it
being analysed more as a product than a state. Far from being fixed, it undergoes
many changes over time which prevents it from being considered immutable in its
practices, conceptions and speech. In this framework, sport’s origin and areas of
expansion provide important clues to explain its development. England has played
an important role in this development, a role which extends beyond the area of
sports. England’s influence on other countries has been growing since the
seventeenth century. It has been felt in the domains of maritime business, exotic
travel, customs (dance, clothes, food, card games) and parliamentary and judicial
terminology. Nevertheless, beyond practice, representations of practice are
permanently marked by British influence. In a context where geopolitics and
representations of practice occupy an increasingly important place in international
relationships, [2] sport in general, and football in particular, due to its popularity,
plays a cultural propaganda role not limited to sports competitions. [3] Sport
promotes a way of thinking or talking. Linguistic representations are particularly
important within the framework of activities that were first developed in England.
Sport is, then, an interesting tool of analysis to understand the role and the
influence of British representations, their evolution, even their transformations
from the moment they spread beyond national boundaries. While the rules,
techniques and forms of activities such as sport have already been studied, [4] the
semantic aspects have not been, until now, the aim of detailed investigations.
Indeed, if sport is practice, it is also language conveying representations of it.
Numerous English terms in the lexicon of other languages spoken in areas in
contact with England provide evidence of the spread of sport-related language.
Following the industrial and technological revolution of the nineteenth century,
England’s dominance spread throughout Europe, leading to the linguistic
dominance of English at the beginning of the twentieth century. France did not
escape this phenomenon and its language has borrowed from its Anglo-Saxon
neighbour. Since the nineteenth century, there has been an increase in borrowings
from English in all spheres, despite French reluctance in some circles to go along
this route and adoption of measures to stem this tide. [5]
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Thanks to its worldwide dimension and the important place it holds on both sides
of the Channel, football has become a field of analysis in which to examine the level
of semantic spread. Through the language used in the football, we will analyse current
anglicisms, and attempt to explain the origin and the subsequent transformations
that reveal processes of cultural identification.
Anglicisms
Plural Modalities
For a long time, anglicisms have been considered the sign of France’s geopolitical
dependence on the British Empire. Because the use of anglicisms extends beyond the
United Kingdom and forms a worldwide language, they delimit a sphere of influence in
competition with French, they have been described in opprobrious terms. For many
French authors, anglicisms might be more specifically considered as a symbol of French
vocabulary’s lack of power to withstand its expansionist neighbour across the English
Channel. Nowadays, the English language plays the role that the French language used
to play in the seventeenth century: lingua franca. In spite of several initiatives to
counteract its reach, as evidenced after 1937 with the creation of the ‘office de la langue
française’. After some reorganizations, it became in 2001 ‘la délégation générale à la
langue française et aux langues de France (DGLFLF)’. This delegation coordinates the
development of lists of lexical items thanks to the ‘commissions ministérielles de
terminologie et de néologie (CMT)’; they allow, in each ministry, to propose to French
speakers some recommendations for the use of terms relative to each sector. The sport
CMT was created in 1984, its aim is to find French equivalents to anglicisms in sport.
The word ‘anglicism’ appeared for the first time in the Grand Dictionnaire français
by Miège (1687) with the following definition: ‘Anglicism, an expression proper to
the English.’ [6] This definition dating back over three centuries has evolved little and
has been the object of only minor adjustments: for example, Pergnier [7] suggested
three definitions: an anglicism is (1) An English word or an English form met
occasionally in an utterance in French. [. . .]; (2) An English term or a term influenced
by English, whose frequency of use is enough to be considered as being integrated
(however, well or poorly) into the French lexicon and listed in dictionaries and
glossaries [. . .]; (3) An English word used wrongly in place of the correct French
word. The first two definitions concern the language events themselves, whereas the
third implies a judgement in respect to its correct usage (anglicisms are indexed for
correction by various language commissions).
An anglicism thus indicates a lexical unit [8] of which the signifier and/or the
signified originates in the English language. The difficulty of this definition is the
Saussurean dichotomy ‘signifier and signified’ because to borrow from another
language does not necessarily mean borrowing the signifier (the sound or written
word) and the signified (the meaning). Partially following Mareschal’s typology, [9]
we will examine five types of anglicisms for this study:
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The intact Anglicism. An English form and its meaning (or one of its meanings) are
imported into French and adopted as is with the referent they stand for (e.g. football);
The truncated Anglicism. An English form and its meaning are borrowed with the
referent they stand for but the signifier is truncated when it enters into French
(e.g. foot or it has already been truncated in English (e.g. penalty);
The gallicized anglicism. That can be divided into two categories:
The gallicized anglicism by adaptation. An English word is imported with its referent
and integrated into the French linguistic system and undergoes graphic and
morphological adaptations with the aim of giving it a ‘French appearance’ (e.g. tackle
became tacle);
The gallicized anglicism by derivation. It corresponds to lexical units whose root keeps
the English form and are derived thanks to French affixes (e.g. dribbleur);
The signifier Anglicism. Only the form is English, neither the meaning nor the referent
are borrowed from English (e.g. footing);
The signified anglicism. It comes from the attribution of an English meaning to a French
word which already exists into the French language, it is due to the same morphological
features that two lexical units can possess, it exists a lot of lexical units that have the same
form in English and in French but not the same meaning (for example, the meaning of
amateur as ‘someone who takes part in a sport and without being paid for it’ is due to the
influence of the English ‘amateur’, in French, amateur means, in its first sense, someone
who likes a particular thing, such as ‘amateur d’art’ or ‘amateur de vin’.)
Origins of anglicisms. If anglicisms represent evidence of relations between France and
England, they are a testimony to the familiarity of French people with the AngloSaxon world, the discovery of a foreign country occurring almost always through its
language: ‘relations which have been established between two peoples since the
sixteenth century have brought into French an uninterrupted wave of anglicisms.’ [10]
The history of sport in France [11] and of football [12] in particular reveals the role of
England in its development and codification. We know that through contact between
nations, people’s vocabulary also undergoes a change because of mutual exchange
between the languages. [13] Language is tied to the history of the society and culture in
which it is used. Taking advantage of economic exchange, the British controlled for a
long time and of British importance in international relationships, the British also
exported a lifestyle, cultural practices, a vision of the world via the language.
The English exported football into France with its characteristic vocabulary
and French people have, for the most part, adopted and adapted this vocabulary.
In 1920, when writing about English terms used in the French language, Bonnaffé
[14] already stressed the importance of journalists and the integration of linguistic
borrowings
[These] words are collected on site, in England and the US, by tourists, writers,
business men, traders, and more importantly journalists, professional news
recorders, word inventors, who give them their concrete form under which they
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will penetrate the public domain through the press, books, the theatre and print
people’s memories.
As Le Bidois [15] also stresses: ‘no one will deny that the French press offers to
English words an extremely favourable culture medium’. The origin of these
borrowings often comes from the written language, especially the written press. From
1924, the first generation of sports journalists, fixated as they were on Anglo-Saxon
culture, [16] turned naturally to their colleagues in other countries within the
international association of sports correspondents, who they considered the most
qualified in this field. Revealing their admiration for the performances of the British
athletes, they imported the specific vocabulary of the sport without trying to gallicize
it so as not to run the risk of misrepresenting it.
Following these two linguists’ assertions, we thoroughly analysed articles dealing
with football and extracted from L’Équipe, a daily newspaper, in order to identify the
origin and the nature of those anglicisms that are still the most frequently used today.
As for L’Equipe, it is a national reference [17] in terms of sport and provides a good
representation of the vocabulary used in the media.
The Data
The corpus was collected by extracting the English words from the sport newspaper
L’Equipe between 14 and 30 August 2004 and 8 and 24 August 2008. These periods,
corresponding to the Athens and Beijing Olympics Games, the French national
football championship and, moreover, a part of other European championships, are
of particular interest in so far as they provide a concentration of sports analyses. They
thus offer a wide corpus of anglicisms, with on the one hand the Olympics Games,
where the two official languages are French and English [18] and on the other, the
French and European championships that use their national language with a lot of
English borrowings. [19] The five tables below present the different types of
anglicisms found in the analysed corpus, and we have given for each of them the date
they were introduced into the French language. Nevertheless, we should specify that
these dates are only approximate because the words for which we can indicate the
exact date of their introduction into the language are few. Mostly, we have to be
satisfied with an approximation and we must not forget that the first appearance of a
word in a book is not always the date of its birth. [20]
This approach leads us to classify anglicisms in a temporal interval and thus to
establish hypotheses about cultural representations and the semantic analyses of
the latter through the course of the history of the French language. The
comparison between the meaning of the term used and the original meaning in
English will be an important clue of semantic transformations in the language of
sport.
The study of a newspaper allows work on an authentic and living document, but
the constitution of a corpus based on a daily newspaper does not provide an
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exhaustive list of anglicisms. It provides insight, nevertheless, into the attitudes
adopted by the journalists and their perception of the subject.
In terms of methodology, we did not take into account proper names which
correspond to intrinsic realities in each country nor intact anglicisms because they
become integrated into French structure: for example, intact anglicisms like the
adjective ‘international’. Its morphological construction ‘inter þ nominal root (i.e.
the basic element in a word which remains after all affixes have been removed, and
which may form the basis of a number of related words) þ al’ is a usual structure of
French; moreover, the French language possesses ‘nation’ and ‘national’, so, if the
lexical unit when it appeared in 1802 could be perceived as an anglicism, its
integration to French morphology has since hidden its origin and only scholars or
linguists are able to recognize it as a borrowing.
Intact anglicisms. The intact anglicisms (see Table 1) found in articles relating to
football have been borrowed by the French language uninterrupted since the
beginning of the nineteenth century, with a paroxysm between 1850 and 1950 (30
anglicisms borrowed out of 43). [21]
These anglicisms are usually named ‘obviousness’ [22] in linguistics, that is to say
the borrowing was both done at the level of the signifier and of the signified, and both
come from the English language. But the semantic evolution of these lexical units did
not occur in the same way in the two languages. For example, the ‘bookmaker’ is the
person who receives bets on racetracks, then, by extension, everyone who takes bets
in sports, whereas in Anglo-Saxon countries, the word ‘bookmaker’ extends well
beyond the setting of sports. In this context, we notice that the integration of an
intact anglicism corresponds to a restriction of the meaning of the term used, usually
limited to its original meaning in the English language. This situation leads to the
assumption that even though the use of sports terminology comes from intercultural
exchanges, it does not assume all its aspects. This temporal difference is found in the
meaning used with numerous distortions revealing either a model of British
particularity or a misunderstanding of the borrowed language. Indeed, using English
to talk about sports tends to convey an identifying message for the one who uses it
appropriately, adding prestige to his speech and his person.
We know that, in all languages, there are transfers of words or sentences that come
from a particular domain and can be used in another. It is certain that sport is a
socio-cultural phenomenon which has huge importance in our societies today, and
the connections between sports and other domains show a constant interpenetration
of their respective vocabulary. Sportsmen are often compared to movie stars with the
use of expressions such as casting, star, show or superman, and football, due to its vast
diffusion, increases the tenor and the function. The strong impact of Anglo-Saxon
culture on French culture manifests itself in borrowing anglicisms in their original
form and meanings; these new lexical units, which accompany cultural and social
changes, mark an evolution in the French language, a transformation and an
enrichment of it. The semantic analysis of the expression ‘fair play’, which usually
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Table 1 Intact anglicisms
Date of
introduction
in French
[25]
From the
English
Un bookmaker
1855
Bookmaker
Un boss
1869
Un break
1960
Un casting
1972
Un challenge
1884
Un club
1733
Un coach
1910
Un derby
1876
Un dribble
1913
Le fair play
1856
Word
Le fighting spirit
Récent
Le football
1872
Le goal-average
1926
Groggy
1910
Un handicap
1839
Un head coach
Récent
Un hold-up
1925
Une interview
1887
Un joker
1912
Un/une leader
1822
Un manager
1857
Le marketing
1944
Example
«. . . Arsenal reste le favori des bookmakers.»
14 Aug. 2004 (p. 22)
Boss
«Quand j’ai rencontré le boss . . .» 17 Aug.
2008 (p. 27)
Break
«Ils avaient fait le break . . .» 23 Aug. 2008
(p. 22)
Casting
«. . . chacun semblait anticiper l’erreur de
casting . . .» 21 Aug. 2004 (p. 23)
Challenge
« . . . relever le challenge de Manchester
United et Chelsea . . .» 17 Aug. 2008
(p. 27)
Club
«Ça fait deux fois qu’on joue contre des
clubs qui évoluent très bas.» 17 Aug.
2008 (p. 20)
Coach
« . . . le coach aime bien que l’on s’en tienne
au cadre.» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 24)
Derby
« . . . à dix jours du derby . . .» 21 Aug. 2008
(p. 21)
Dribble
« . . . un dribble emberlificoté de Ceara . . .»
17 Aug. 2008 (p. 20)
Fair play
« . . . il faut alors lui remettre un prix du
fair-play.» 11 Aug. 2008 (p. 21)
Fighting spirit « . . . comblé par le fighting spirit de
l’équipe . . .» 15 Aug. 2004 (p. 21)
Football
« . . . le football était alors considéré dans sa
cité.» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 24)
Goal average «Faire 8e quand on a un goal-average . . .»
14 Aug. 2004 (p. 17)
Groggy
« . . . le Brésilien groggy . . .» 23 Aug. 2004
(p. 18)
Handicap
« . . . un handicap sur le plan sportif.»
21 Aug. 2004 (p. 23)
Head coach « . . . il est désormais le head coach.»
14 Aug. 2004 (p. 22)
Hold up
«On peut toujours faire un hold-up sur un
match.» 14 Aug. 2004 (p. 18)
Interview
«Dans son interview . . .» 22 Aug. 2008
(p. 21)
Joker
«Il a ajouté deux matches joker.» 23 Aug.
2008 (p. 20)
Leader
« . . . l’ASM est un curieux leader
provisoire . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 22)
Manager
« . . . le manager général.» 17 Aug. 2008
(p. 24)
Marketing
« . . . ce qui ressemble à une considérable
opération marketing.» 19 Aug. 2008
(p. 18)
(continued )
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Table 1 (Continued )
Date of
introduction
in French
[25]
From the
English
Un match
1827
Match
Out
Un / une outsider
1891
1859
Out
Outsider
Une performance
1839
Performance
Le punch
1909
Punch
Le record
1882
Record
Un remake
1946
Remake
Un reporter
1828
Reporter
Le score
1896
Score
Le self-control
1883
Self-control
Le soccer
1913
Soccer
Le sponsor
1972
Sponsor
Le sponsoring
1974
Sponsoring
Un sprint
1895
Sprint
Le staff
1944
Staff
Le standing
1914
Standing
Une star
1919
Star
Un stress
1950
Stress
Un supporter
1930
Supporter
Le suspense
1951
Suspense
Un tabloı̈d
1933
Tabloid
Word
Example
«Dans un match très musclé . . .» 17 Aug.
2008 (p. 16)
«Les recrues out...» 14 Aug. 2004 (p. 18)
«On part comme le gros outsider . . .»
25 Aug. 2008 (p. 23)
« . . . sa remarquable performance
personnelle . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 23)
« . . . son punch en font déjà une attraction
. . .» 14 Aug. 2004 (p. 19)
«Le record d’affluence a failli être battu.»
16 Aug. 2004 (p. 20)
« . . . un remake de la dernière finale . . .»
26 Aug. 2004 (p. 9)
« . . . annonce le reporter britannique.»
26 Aug. 2004 (p. 19)
«Rapidement menés au score . . . » 17 Aug.
2008 (p. 22)
« . . . garder son self-control . . .» 16 Aug.
2004 (p. 20)
« . . . elles ont dominé la planète soccer.»
27 Aug. 2004 (p. 8)
« . . . l’attention que lui porte les
sponsors . . .» 14 Aug. 2008 (p. 18)
« . . . un avantage au niveau du
sponsoring . . .» 21 Aug. 2004 (p. 23)
« . . . une série de six sprints de
40 mètres . . .» 14 Aug. 2008 (p. 22)
« . . . faute de renforts jugés satisfaisants
par le staff technique . . .» 17 Aug. 2008
(p. 21)
« . . . une seconde période plus conforme à
son standing.» 15 Aug. 2004 (p. 17)
«Il a tout pour être l’une des stars de la
saison.» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 27)
« . . . aucun stress particulier . . . » 23 Aug.
2008 (p. 20)
« . . . les supporters du PSG n’attendront
pas . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 20)
«Elle n’a pas laissé de place au suspense.»
14 Aug. 2008 (p. 20)
« . . . la presse tabloı̈d . . .» 22 Aug. 2008
(p. 22)
refers to sportsmanship, reveals that it is used in French in other fields. This
expression stands for conformity to the established rules. There is even a comité du
fair-play (fair play commitee) in France. This word does not need to be translated
2228
because it represents an ideal, a perfect behaviour that does not need to be specified:
the meaning is known by the majority of French people.
To retain its character as a living language, the French language must constantly be
enriched with new words and expressions, [23] ‘it is undeniable that our
contemporaries prefer more and more certain English expressions in their daily
communications: they seem incomparably more expressive and in any case more ‘up
to date’ than their French equivalents’. Often associated with modernity [24] and
youth, the domain of sports is very marked by this last tendency which is only
increasing its social and symbolic function.
Table 1 makes no claims to be exhaustive, but, nevertheless, it represents a sample
that reveals some basic tendencies. We notice in particular that most of the intact
anglicisms were introduced during the first period of exportation of football into
France. [26] It constitutes a legacy of the practice under consideration, somewhat
subjected to some transformations but still allowing identification of its nature. Some
of them appeared more recently and correspond to changes in the field (i.e. sponsor)
or football organization (i.e. head coach). ‘To be football’ is to master its rules but
also its codes of which language makes up one of the elements of promotion. It
underlines its universality that constitutes one of the priorities of the institutions that
run it [27] while showing its differences with other sports that are not as easily
recognizable according to countries.
Truncated anglicisms. Truncated anglicisms (see Table 2) also have their place in the
vocabulary of football. We know that the English language possesses numerous
ellipses, truncations, abbreviations of long words, amputations of compounds while
keeping just one term of the compound, and clear and concise vocabulary. Purists
and defenders of the norm recommend the use of periphrases to represent a concept
already borrowed by the French language in its English form: for example, ‘a free kick
taken from a corner of the field and given when one of the players on the opposing
team has kicked the ball behind the goal line’ defines what is meant in English by
corner. This expression was taken into French for its conciseness and its periphrasis
Table 2 Truncated anglicisms
Date of
introduction
in French
From the
English
Un corner
Un fan
1897
1951
Corner kick
Fanatic
Le foot
1924
Football
Un penalty
Pro
Un test
1902
1881
1893
Penalty kick
Professional
Mental test
Word
Example
«. . . déposait un corner . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 23)
«Nasri a vite conquis ses nouveaux fans.» 17 Aug.
2008 (p. 27)
«. . . on doit être une ville de foot . . .» 17 Aug. 2008
(p. 24)
«. . . un troisième penalty . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 16)
«Ils sont pros . . .» 21 Aug. 2008 (p.21)
«C’était un bon test.» 21 Aug. 2008 (p. 18)
2229
(i.e. a roundabout way of saying something) ‘coup de pied de coin’ seems to be used only
by some obstinate Gauls. The French language has even developed this particularity of
the English language in sports, by truncating many anglicisms, and even giving them a
typically French meaning: ‘le foot’ does not mean part of the leg but the sport in which
two teams of 11 players try to send into the opponents’ goal a round ball with their feet,
their head or any other part of the body except the hand or arm. This word, while
considered borrowed, designates a particular reality to French speakers. This semantic
evolution marks a process of cultural identification: even though the word comes from
the truncated form of an English word, the signified is typically French. The linguistic
phenomenon of truncating, by apocope (loss of pronunciation of the final syllable or
letter of a word, e.g. photo[graph]) or apheresis (omission of a syllable at the beginning
of a word, e.g. [auto]bus), represents a semantic appropriation of a new lexical unit
produced by borrowing. It reveals a double instrumentalization of the English language
in the domain of sports used by the French: both practical (English words are shorter)
and serving to set those French people using English expressions instead of their French
equivalents apart from French purists.
Gallicized anglicisms. Gallicized anglicisms (see Table 3) are a type of anglicisms in
constant evolution, following the needs of the French language. They allow the
creation of new lexical units relating to the same lexical field. As for the vocabulary of
Table 3 Gallicized anglicisms
Date of
introduction
in French
From the
English
Booster
1962
Boost
Une compétition
1759
Un débriefing
1982
Un dribbleur
1895
Forfait
1829
Un footballeur
Footballistique
1892
1988
Un manageur
Pénaliser
Récent
1902
Word
Stopper
1841
Un tacle
1907
Example
«. . . ce qui est arrivé à leur copain peut les
booster comme produire l’effet inverse.»
23 Aug. 2008 (p. 19)
Competition «. . . au même stade de la compétition . . .»
17 Aug. 2008 (p. 16)
Brief
«. . . au débriefing collectif . . .» 23 Aug. 2008
(p. 20)
Dribbler
«. . . Thorstein est un peu moins dribbleur . . . .»
23 Aug. 2008 (p. 20)
Forfeit
«Forfait mercredi avec l’équipe de France . . .»
22 Aug. 2008 (p. 22)
Footballer
«le footballeur Thalassis . . .» 14 Aug. 2004 (p. 3)
Football
«. . . sa déclinaison footballistique . . .» 16 Aug.
2004 (p. 20)
Manager
«Le manageur italien . . .» 12 Aug. 2008 (p. 20)
Penalize
«Et on a ainsi pénalisé l’OL et les autres clubs
français.» 23 Aug. 2004 (p. 18)
Stop
«. . . jusqu’à ce qu’il stoppe un coup franc . . .»
23 Aug. 2004 (p. 18)
Tackle
«Il s’agit d’un tacle propre . . .» 11 Aug. 2008
(p. 21)
2230
football, we have, for example, the nouns footballeur/footballeuse (based on masculine/
feminine gender -eur -euse), the adjective footballistique (based on an analogy with
journalistique or touristique). While keeping its morphological root, the word football
created derivatives, [28] ‘integration of the foreign term is definitively completed when a
range of derivatives develops from this word, formed with French affixes . . .’.
This phenomenon of lexical enrichment of the language, by the creation of new
lexical units based on borrowing, marks a transformation of thought and an
appropriation of a new cultural phenomenon, a cultural identification to the French
language by the use of typically French affixes. Brunot’s assertion, published in the
foreword of the Dictionnaire des anglicismes at the beginning of the century is thus
invalidated, that he considers
[that] a day will come [. . .] when we will want to look closely at our borrowings,
study them by periods or subjects, a day when we will try to find out how come at a
certain moment in time French thought was unable to be expressed except in
foreign signs.
The French language is not expressed only in foreign signs, it uses them to be
enriched, to develop the communicative needs of its society and thus create a new
cultural identification. [29] ‘When a foreign word – even a proper name – gives to the
language derivatives by adding a prefix or, especially, a suffix, it means that the
borrowing is well integrated, at the point of becoming a derivational base outside its
initial context.’
In this study we measure the importance of linguistic interpenetrations because
sport in general, and football in particular, provides a rich source of examples due to
the homologous nature of the practice of sport. It becomes thus an instrument of the
spread of anglicisms which can extend subsequently beyond the restricted field of
sports. By participating in the acceptance of this language form, because it seems
natural when it deals with sports and when it constitutes a historical custom, it
participates in the transformation of the current linguistic trends.
Signified anglicisms. Signified anglicisms (see Table 4) are the most interesting to
study at the semantic level because this type of anglicism consists in giving an already
existing lexical unit in the French language a new meaning as it occurs in the English
language and used by an English lexical unit. It is due to the similar morphological
characteristics that two lexical units can possess. Indeed, many lexical units exist
which have the same form in French and English, but they do not always have the
same meaning in the two languages. Due to the phenomenon of languages in contact,
the signified of an English lexical unit is going to ‘rub off’ on a French lexical unit;
this type of borrowing only concerns the signified, so it is very difficult to discern but
it testifies to a strong linguistic and cultural interpenetration between these two
languages. With the English language as the intermediary, the signified Anglicism
enriches the French language, but imperceptibly: the influence of the English
language is only present at the level of the signified, the signifier adapts itself
2231
completely to French language structure, so its presence is not always obvious, but yet
a fertile source of data ‘while all dictionaries identify the word football as an
anglicism, they don’t make mention of expressions such as arrière, avant, équipe, in
their sport vocabulary’. [30] Because the form of these anglicisms is integrated into
French language structure, only with detailed knowledge of the semantic content, of
the history of the lexical unit and of the borrowed language can these words and
phrases be recognized as coming semantically from the English language.
Signifier anglicisms. However, the French language also introduces some ambiguities,
whereas the truncated, gallicized and signifier anglicisms characterize a cultural
identity:
every individual maintains a dialectical relationship with the word he utters: the
speaker, as a human-being, born at a certain time and at a given moment in history
is preceded by language, as he is by all socio-historic objects and institutions, which
fundamentally determines his relationship with the world. He receives the
language, and as Sartre said about freedom, he receives it in a different way
depending if he was born in Passy or Billancourt. On the other hand and at the
same time, he appropriates and internalizes this language which shapes and
determines him. [32]
The signifier anglicisms represent a specific case of anglicisms. They possess two
characteristics: the lexical units have a French signified different from the English
Table 4 Signified anglicisms
Date of
introduction
in French
From the
English
Amateur
1833
Amateur
Un entraı̂neur
1884
Entraı̂ner
1828
Un entraı̂nement
1885
Une finale
1895
Un finaliste [31]
1924
Professionnel
1842
Une qualification
1840
Qualifier
1840
Word
Example
«Pensionnaire du championnat de France
amateur . . .» 11 Aug. 2008 (p. 22)
Train
«. . . l’entraı̂neur brésilien . . .» 17 Aug. 2008
(p. 16)
Train
«Puisqu’ils jouent souvent comme ils
s’entraı̂nent . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 24)
Train
«. . . l’entraı̂nement avec le Bayern de
Munich . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 25)
Final
«Pour pouvoir honoré ce rendez-vous aux
vrais airs de finale . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 16)
Finalist
«. . . finaliste du Mondial des moins de 20
ans . . .» 22 Aug. 2008 (p. 15)
Professional «. . .de pouvoir disputer demain soir son
493e match professionnel . . .» 22 Aug. 2008
(p. 21)
Qualification «. . . leur début de campagne de qualification.»
19 Aug. 2008 (p. 18)
Qualify
«Argentine et Brésil ont souffert pour
se qualifier . . .» 17 Aug. 2008 (p. 16)
2232
Table 5 Signifier anglicisms
Word
Un coaching
Date of
introduction
in French
From the
English
Récent
Instruction
Un footing [35]
1892
Jogging
Le pressing
1950
Pressure
Le speaker
1904
Announcer
Example
«. . . pour le coaching en cours . . .» 18 Aug. 2008
(p. 24)
«Il effectuera un footing aujourd’hui . . .» 14 Aug.
2008 (p. 21)
«. . . le pressing de Monaco l’a broyé . . .» 15
Aug. 2004 (p. 17)
«. . . le speaker n’annonce pas . . .» 14 Aug. 2008
(p. 19)
signified or else the signifier does not exist in English. In reality, there are called ‘false
anglicisms’, [33] that is to say there are lexical units composed of English morphemes
but neither the referent nor the signified exists in English. They function as
mythologies [34] aiming to introduce a French reality in an English form to intensify
its legitimacy at least symbolically. An English form would be enough to assure the
support of a wide public, in particular young people, without arguing the
truthfulness and the meaning. Table 5 presents the signifier anglicisms found in
our corpus. To flesh out this type of anglicism, we can mention recordman or
recordwoman (record-holder in English).
Conclusion
This study highlights a tendency that is important but has been little studied in
current linguistics: semantic and cultural borrowing. Sport, and football in particular,
is a tool of diffusion of language and notably of anglicisms thanks to the press, but ‘to
borrow a lexical unit from a foreign language’ does not inform the real modalities of
the borrowing (signified, signifier, referent). Through the analysis of five types of
anglicisms and about 60 lexical units collected from a sport newspaper, we studied
their origin and their nature as well as the evolution, even the semantic
transformations allowing us to understand the status and the influence of United
Kingdom in cultural representations. It turns out that sport has been identified by a
particular structured language since the second half of the nineteenth century and
which has seen successive adjustments up until today.
Beyond its morphological integration into the borrowing language, the language
of sport undergoes semantic transformations over time which provides a process of
cultural identification. The French language borrows from the English language,
then these lexical units borrowed evolve in a different way in each language as a
function of the needs of the speakers and of the instrumentalization they make of
it, a lexical unit can change its lexical field or can refer to several lexical fields. This
study allowed us to understand the semantic evolution of the lexical units
2233
presented, the borrowing does not establish an end in itself, each living language
must develop its anglicisms but it also has to watch their appropriation within
French society because using the English language in sport conveys a representation
and a message of identity.
Each language conveys its cultural representations, the Spanish language is an
interesting example to study because this latter possesses a singular tradition in the
anglicisms borrowings: it borrows anglicisms directly from the English but it also
adopts anglicisms from French. Pratt [36] found this intervention of French in the
introduction of English lexical units because these latter adopted some linguistic
characteristics absent in English and present in French. Indeed, we notice that some
signifier anglicisms, created in French with English elements, are borrowed by the
Spanish language (it is the case of recordman) underlining the internationalization of
sports language structured by successive borrowings in the languages of the countries
in which the practices spread. This has contributed to the globalization of sport via
the actual practice with shared rules throughout the world but also thanks to shared
perception media of which language is the main vehicle.
Notes
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18]
Thanks to Jacqueline Thomas for reviewing an early version of this essay.
Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780.
Beck, Scoring for Britain: International football and international politics 1900–1939, 272–83.
Basket-ball was recently the subject of a colloquium examining the nature of intercultural
exchanges between both sides of the Atlantic Ocean: Archambault, Artiaga, Bosc, Double Jeu.
Histoire du basket-ball entre France et Amériques, and more generally Riess, City games: The
evolution of American urban society and the rise of sports.
Crystal, English as a global language, and for the French language, Tournier, Les mots anglais
du français.
Mackenzie, Les relations de l’Angleterre et de la France d’après le vocabulaire I. Les infiltrations
de la langue et de l’esprit français: les anglicismes français, 108.
Pergnier, Les anglicismes: danger ou enrichissement pour la langue française, 19–20.
The lexical unit corresponds to an item retained together as a chunk, which is called a
«memorized lexical unit» (Tournier, 1988).
Mareschal, Contribution à l’étude comparée de l’anglicisation en Europe francophone et au
Québec, 67–77.
Höfler, Dictionnaire des anglicismes, V.
Poyer «L’institutionnalisation du sport (1880–1914)» in P. Tétart, Histoire du sport en France
du Second Empire au régime de Vichy.
Cox, Vamplew, Russell, Encyclopedia of British Football Publisher.
Weinreich, Languages in contact: Findings and problems.
Bonnaffé, Dictionnaire des anglicismes, IX.
Le Bidois, Les mots trompeurs ou le délire verbal, 253.
Marchand, Les défricheurs de la presse sportive, 16.
Andreff, Économie du sport, 107.
The official languages of the IOC are French and English. At all Sessions, simultaneous
interpretation must be provided into French, English, German, Spanish, Russian and Arabic.
In the case of divergence between the French and English texts of the Olympic Charter and
2234
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
[25]
[26]
[27]
[28]
[29]
[30]
[31]
[32]
[33]
[34]
[35]
[36]
any other IOC document, the French text shall prevail unless expressly provided otherwise in
writing. (http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_122.pdf).
Rethacker, La fabuleuse histoire du foot, 23.
Nyrop, Grammaire historique de la langue française, 3-Formation des mots, 9.
Bernard, Les anglicismes dans le sport en langue française: modes d’intégration et aspects
sociolinguistiques, 328–9.
Beaujot, ‘Anglicismes et anglomaniaques’, 85–93.
Walter, L’aventure des mots français venus d’ailleurs, 192.
Holt, Sport and the British. A modern history.
Rey, Dictionnaire historique de la langue française; Tournier, Les mots anglais du français;
Höfler, Dictionnaire des anglicismes.
Eisenberg, Lanfranchi, Mason, Wahl, FIFA 1904–2004. Le siècle du football.
Wagg, Giving the game away. Football, politics and culture on five continents.
Dubois, ‘L’emprunt en français’, 10–16.
Yaguello, Le grand livre de la langue française, 412.
MacKenzie, Les relations de l’Angleterre et de la France, 47.
The English finalist, for example, ‘player or runner who acts in a final trial’, seems, in the form
finaliste, to be a French word. See Orr ‘Les anglicismes du vocabulaire sportif’, 303.
Porcher, ‘le sociologique dans le linguistique’, 6–10.
Spence, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’un anglicisme?’, 323–34.
Barthes, Mythologies.
In French, ‘footing’ has been created based on the English word ‘foot’, to define a sports pace;
the lexical item ‘footing’ does not exist in English. See Guilbert, ‘Anglomanie et vocabulaire
technique’, 281.
Pratt, El anglicismo en el español peninsular contemporáneo. Madrid: Gredos, 1980.
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Barthes, R., Mythologies. Paris: Seuil, 1957.
Beaujot, J. P. ‘Anglicismes et anglomaniaques’. Le Français aujourd’hui, 63 (1983): 85–93.
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Football: A History of Semantic and Cultural Borrowing [1]

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